Education often is conducted by reading printed material or by listening to audio information presented in various ways, such as in a lecture. Educational systems based on these approaches are limited in that they fail to convey or reinforce information through a person's sense of touch. It thus is desirable to develop an educational system and method that combines printed or audio material with tactile material.
Some children's books combine printed and tactile material and may be known as "touch and feel" books. However, touch and feel books are directed more toward entertainment and development of the tactile senses than toward education. The subjects of some touch and feel books are fanciful rather than real. For example, imaginary "lacy" bugs may be covered with lace, and imaginary "leathery" bugs may be covered with leather. In contrast, the subjects of other touch and feel books are real, but the associated visual and tactile samples are fanciful. For example, a real-life bird such as a robin may be covered with only a single feather, and that feather may be orange rather than natural colored, and derived from a domestic fowl rather than a robin. Finally, tactile samples in touch and feel books are permanently affixed to given pages in a single volume, such that only samples and information on a given and adjacent page may be examined at the same time.
Commercial collections of natural-history samples also combine printed and tactile materials. These collections employ authentic samples, and they may include a single separate collection of information to be examined independently from the samples. However, these collections are generally designed for visual rather than tactile examination. For example, some samples, such as leaves and insects, are too fragile to touch routinely and typically are housed behind glass to limit access. Other samples, such as fish and amphibians, are too unsafe to touch routinely due to harmful preservatives and likewise typically are housed behind glass. Yet other samples, such as fluorescent rocks, may be touched but are of interest only for their appearance.
Significantly, samples in known natural-history collections are not housed for the particularized study most desirable with tactile samples. Indeed, samples usually are housed as a large group in a single container. Consequently, a given sample cannot be examined without either removing it from its container or else needlessly exposing adjacent samples to possible damage. Moreover, samples cannot be subdivided without at least some samples being removed from the container. Yet, such subdivision serves important educational goals. For example, subdividing can permit students to make tactile connections between samples by sorting samples according to feel. Moreover, subdividing can permit a single collection to serve more students by allowing multiple individuals to examine samples simultaneously. Finally, subdividing allows collections to be built in differing ways to accommodate differing educational goals or a piece at a time to accommodate limited financial resources. The latter consideration is especially important for relatively expensive samples, such as fur.
Similarly, information included with known natural-history collections is not formatted for the particularized study most desirable with tactile samples. Information in known collections is formatted as a single volume, which cannot be subdivided to accompany groups of subdivided samples. Consequently, only a single subset of samples can be studied in conjunction with such information at any given time. In addition, information cannot be sorted so that only relevant information accompanies given subsets of samples.